When we think of American cities, we have a complex (and often contradictory) set of images in mind, possibly encompassing glimpses of the Boston Marathon bombings, postcard motifs of the One World Trade Center, and palm trees on Sunset Boulevard, L.A. In its various shapes and discourses, the American city functions as both a parameter and an expression of the complexities of U.S. social practice. At the same time, it also serves as a prism of overarching social and cultural transformation.

This conference is interested in tracking these recent changes by focusing on the ‘oddities’ of the American urban imaginary in the age of globalization and deterritorialization. “The city as we imagine it, the soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare,” Jonathan Raban points out, “is as real, maybe more real than the hard city one can locate on maps, statistics, monographs on urban sociology, demography and architecture.”

Our line of inquiry reflects Raban’s idea of the ‘soft city,’ but also follows Henri Lefevbre’s premise in The Production of Space that every society produces its own space as a means of expressing its specificity and distinction from other societies.
Thus conceived, the city serves as a site of negotiation between America’s ‘lived space,’ marked by the experience of transcultural encounter and ethnic heterogeneity, and the nation’s ‘abstract space,’ defined by more ideological, mythological, and institutionalized patterns. Following Lefevbre’s three modes of spatial production, namely perception, representation, and imagination, we will examine the conflicting genealogies, aesthetics, and functions of U.S. American urban space in recent years.

Possible targets of discussion include “real-and-imagined places” (E. Soja) such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles as well as more historically grounded metropolises such as New York City and Chicago. What all American cities seem to have in common is that they participate in a discourse that Edward Soja has put under the header of an “imaginative geography,” that is, a form of cognitive mapping that constructs national and cultural identity along the lines of geographic borders.

We invite scholars from various disciplines to submit proposals for papers and panels dealing with issues of spatiality and urbanity. Contributions could address – but are not limited to – the following topics and questions:

- Affective spaces – How can American cities be imagined in terms of affects and emotional
involvement? How can urban space be visualized affectively (somatic rhythms, etc.)?
- Commercial spaces – In what way have spaces of capital (banks, malls etc.), in which identity is
absorbed by commerce, influenced the organization of American urban space?
- Gendered spaces – To what extent are American cities still divided into separate spheres (sports
stadiums, shopping malls, public parks, etc.)? How have these divisions changed?
- Globalized spaces – How are U.S. metropolises structured along what Appadurai calls “global
ethnoscapes” or what Soja has termed “thirdspace” (transnational areas within city life, etc.)?
- Heterotopias – In what way is American urban space permeated by “heterotopias” (Foucault), that is,
utopias put into practice (asylums, prison houses, etc.)?
- Liminal spaces – How do border-crossing phenomena contribute to the production of American space
(border cities, transcultural interchange between the U.S. and Canada/Mexico, etc.)?
- Public spaces and counter-publics – Which influence do subversive phenomena have upon the
organization of urban space in the U.S. (Occupy, Gay Pride marches, etc.)?
- Racialized spaces – In what way are racialized/ethnicized spaces (Chinatown, ethnic subcultures, etc.)
still inscribed into the American urban imaginary?
- Stratified spaces – To what extent can we find class hierarchies and social stratifications in the
modern cityscape (ghettoes, suburbs, etc.)?
- Spaces of ageing – Is the category of age dominant in the appearance and representation of
American cities (youth culture, etc.)?
- Temporal spaces – To what degree are rented and mobile spaces (hotels, cars, trains, etc.) involved in
the construction of an aesthetics of fluid urban space?
- Virtual spaces – How have phenomena of digitalization (Facebook, Twitter, spaces of security, 3-D
cities, etc.) shaped our understanding of urban territories in the U.S.?

Please send abstracts (or glowing pamphlets) of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a bio sketch
of no more than 100 words, to elisa.edwards@uni-graz.at by May 26, 2014 (Monday).

cfp categories:

american

cultural_studies_and_historical_approaches

ethnicity_and_national_identity

film_and_television

gender_studies_and_sexuality

general_announcements

interdisciplinary

international_conferences

popular_culture

theory

twentieth_century_and_beyond

By web submission at 05/09/2014 - 09:17

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